BARCELONA (12.03.17)

​Training for number ten went really well. I'd decided to try a vegetarian diet for the 3 months prior to the race in Barcelona and also went alcohol-free for January in order to get healthy and drop weight. It seemed to work as I was smashing through PB's and after a rough first 2-3 weeks, went injury free for the rest of the plan.

Ahead of the trip I was lucky to receive support from Millions Missing Canada and the Yorkshire Times as well as contact from a number of Spanish ME/CFS & Fibromyalgia groups of patients. We flew over to stay with Teresa, an ME patient from the UK who had kindly offered to put us up for the weekend. On the day before the race we met with Gabriela, Fernando and Patricia who all had family members with ME and it was good to learn more about the situation in Spain. We met up with Ben who was also running the race for Invest In ME and his daughter Emily and we spent the day taking in the sights of the city (La Ramblas, Sagrada Familia etc).

Start

The race started at 8.30am which I quite liked (good to get a big lunch afterwards and get off the course before it gets unbearably hot). I took the metro to Placa D'Espanya and joined Ben in the back pen a few hundred yards behind the line. We had a good chat with an American runner who had signed up last minute and saw members of the 100 marathon club amongst lots of other Brits. Eventually we crossed the line to a cloud of tickertape and Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé's evocative 'Barcelona' -I've got to admit I had a lump in my throat. The start was very crowded and it took a good 2-3 miles to get into a proper stride; I looked down in disgust at my first mile time and resolved to get the show on the road. We had a small climb towards the Nou Camp and the sun was out. It was great to run around the outside of the stadium and see La Masia, where so many amazing footballers had attended and the other facilities there. Having left Ben to battle his own PB, I settled into a good rhythm of 8.30(ish) minute miles and was lapping up the music from the steel bands, rock bands and tribal drummers. It was great to hear shouts of 'Venga Michael' (Come on Michael) and I enjoyed a few high fives with some of the kids on the edge of the streets. I hadn't taken on much water having felt bloated with it on previous races but it was starting to warm up a lot and I threw more of it over my head than down my throat. Actually, I'd soaked my shirt so much that the paper of my race bib and disintegrated and I had to re-attach it with pins; a bit tricky whilst running! As the course took us around Pedrera, I passed a guy with a 12 foot model Eiffel Tower over his head! He had two supporting runners with him and everyone around them was clapping him on, I'm guessing it was a solidarity gesture for the attack on Bataclan, pretty cool. I felt pretty good as we got up to 10 miles, definitely on course for a PB but wary of the rising heat and time I'd spent traversing the course chasing the shade.

Middle

The first of the two 'switchbacks' came where we'd see other runners parallel a few miles ahead. The route climbed a little towards the district of La Segera and the scenery was more of corporate buildings rather than wide picturesque avenues. Coming down towards the half marathon mark I saw James Abrahams, a twitter UKRunchat buddy coming the other way who recognised me and he looked in good shape. I hit halfway at 1hr 55 mins, ideal I thought. That gave me 2 hrs 2 mins to do the next half, it would be tight but I'd done it before in Brussels so knew it was possible. I heard a band playing Dire Straits 'Lady Writer' and decided to sing along, not an obvious song for them to play but they did a great job. It really was getting toasty by now though and I'd started to grab liquids at every station instead of running through trying to dodge folk. I put my ipod on now as the support was a little more sparse and tried to keep things steady at 8.45 min miles as long as I could. I grabbed a bit of banana and some blue powerade as the second switchback came and went. I'm not a big fan of those, I guess they're a necessary evil for keeping the course urban and in the centre but there's nothing more demoralising than being a few traffic cones away from being 3-4 miles further on in the race. As we got to 18 miles I started to feel a bit dizzy and wondered if I was running low on energy. I downed a Honey Power gel and grabbed another from the drinks station, it worked temporarily but I was starting to struggle a bit in the heat and my times were slipping to 9 minute miles. I saw a guy with a pretty cool quote on the back of his t-shirt 'Victories are dreams that never gave up' -I really liked it and resolved to try to remember it for what I knew was going to be 6 tough miles.

End

​At around 20 miles I decided to walk through a refreshment station, my legs were getting really heavy as the course headed towards the coast. I got overtaken by the 4 hour pacemakers and got a bit cross with myself. I had to re-evaluate my goal for the race and was going to aim for sub 4.15, that would be a good starting point for the year, I'd get quicker by training in warmer temperatures I thought. The race marshalling was a bit poor in this last stretch as spectators were wandering onto the course and trying to cross when they really shouldn't have. I saw some collide with runners and as the road narrowed in it was pretty dangerous. At one point all runners had to stop to allow an ambulance to cross the course, it wasn't nice to see runners on stretchers getting treatment but that's the risk we take. The beach looked great, I could just about see it across the streets, I walked for a bit to recover ready for that last incline up Avenue Del Parallel. The crowd were really good here and I knew I only had 2 miles or so left. I was pretty much done in and was licking the back of my hands to get some salt back into me which I'd read sometimes works. I passed a few wheelchair racers in a convoy, huge respect to them, and slowly I trudged up the hill towards the turn for the finish. Running through the two venetian towers (Torres Venecianas) felt good although the finish line still seemed like it was a mile away! I stumbled over it, a bit annoyed I hadn't run better but happy to be done and have got into double figures for the challenge. I'd have much better and worse races, 4.10 was my 6th fastest of the 10. Now time to find out where Ben was and meet with Anni and Pilar (both local ME patients) who had kindly travelled to cheer Ben and I at the finish. Ben got round in one piece and fair play to him, it was a challenging one for him on very little sleep. We had a can of San Miguel together before I headed off for a shower and a traditional Catalan barbeque with Teresa and her friends. In all it was a fantastic weekend, Ben and I both raised over £1K each for Invest In ME's research projects and we helped raise awareness for people there, making lots of great new friends.